A woman has shared key symptoms after she had a seven-month delay before being diagnosed with incurable bowel cancer. Ruby Rogers, 28, said people should not accept a diagnosis if they don’t feel it is right.
Ruby said initially she was told that her symptoms were colitis or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) - and it took seven months until she finally had a CT scan - and by that time she was ‘screaming in pain’. Now she has been told that her bowel cancer is incurable, HullLive reports.
She said: “I don’t eat red meat, I don’t smoke, and I rarely drink - yet there I was at 27 being told I have bowel cancer which has spread to other parts of my body. Every time I tell the doctors I don’t do any of the above three things, they literally sigh in shock - they don’t know why I have this. They say it could be genetic.”
Ruby said she had been left in turmoil by the diagnosis and wondering if she could have done more: “It has been a constant back and forth blaming myself and blaming the GP for not listening to me, me begging them to listen as I’d dropped almost two stone in weight at that point (now even more) yet my NHS note says ‘weight is steady’? Make that make sense.
“Being told ‘it’s probably IBS or colitis’. No, it’s definitely colitis. How is it colitis when I don’t have the symptoms? Constant calls of ‘this pain relief isn’t working’ and being put on more IBS medications like Buscopan and numerous other muscle relaxers which did nothing at all. Nothing.
“Convincing myself - ‘no, it must be colitis - they know what they are doing, they’re professionals’ but knowing deep down it wasn’t. Thinking back in October it was bowel cancer, but thinking “surely the numerous bloods, stools, urine samples, ultrasounds would have shown something.”
Ruby wants to share the symptoms she suffered from so others can act if they suffer in the same way. The symptoms include but are not limited to:
- severe abdominal pain
- sickness
- unexplained weight loss
- loss of appetite/feeling full very quickly leading to not eating hardly at all.
She told how she struggled to have her concerns heard and she had to keep fighting in order to get the right diagnosis. “I was told I would be referred for a CT scan yet this never happened,” she said, “and it changed to a colonoscopy which I was on an 18-week waiting list for. Now I’m not blaming the NHS - I adore the NHS and all it does for us.
“I’m upset as a young person I once again have been ignored and told there’s nothing else to be done. Being told to keep a food diary, even though I’ve said the symptoms don’t come on by food.
“It’s there every single day. Waking up in agony every day. Trying to get through my work day, getting harder each day and feeling like a let-down as my colleagues covered my work. It was horrible. I don’t want sympathy - I want people to see the reality of what this is like.
“I was only taken seriously when I paid for a private consultation a few months ago and the consultant immediately told me no this isn’t x y z. We need an urgent CT scan and colonoscopy. But the cost of going private made it impossible.
“I was only taken seriously when I was taken from work, unable to walk and talk and screaming in pain yet again. I was finally listened to at A&E and had a CT scan that day. I was finally told ‘you have bowel cancer’.”
Ruby is having chemotherapy in a bid to extend her life. She said: “I’m not going to give up yet, myself and my family are looking at alternative medicines as there’s so much proof out there of people being told they are incurable and trying alternative natural remedies and then the cancer disappearing.
“Please don’t let doctors push this off as IBS or anything else if you have symptoms,” Ruby pleaded. “Early diagnosis is so important. It’s hard to get GPs to listen, trust me it really, really is.
“In all this doom and gloom I actually am positive - on my good days. Of course I have down days, hours, moments, more than you’ll know.
Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) says Ruby’s experience is upsetting but says diagnosis of cancer has improved dramatically over the years but accepts it is a particular challenge in younger people.
A spokesman said: “We are really sorry to hear about Ruby’s bowel cancer diagnosis. We would welcome the opportunity to work with Ruby and her GP practice to understand more about her experience if she is happy for us to.
“GPs play a vital role in diagnosing cancer at an early stage, when the opportunities to treat the patient are greater and their outcome is likely to be better.
“However whilst bowel cancer survival has more than doubled in the last 40 years due to a national focus on early diagnosis and advances in and the adoption of lifesaving cancer research, there is always more to do.
“It is widely acknowledged that diagnosis of cancer in young adults is more challenging, the statistics show that cancer in young people accounts for less than one per cent of all new cancer cases in the UK, therefore, this is clearly an area requiring increased focus for that one per cent to benefit from early diagnosis and increased survival rates.”
The spokesman added: “If you have symptoms of bowel cancer it is important that you see your GP for further investigation. Symptoms include but are not limited to: bleeding from your bottom and/or blood in your poo, needing to poo more or less often than you are used to, stomach pain or unexplained weight loss.
A Just Giving page has now been set up by Ruby’s sister in a bid to raise money to help fund her cancer treatment. If you would like to donate then click here.
